Hire Someone To Pay Your Bills & Budget For You?

by J. Money on Monday, August 19, 2013

[UPDATE:I'm now a money coach! If you're interested in working together or learning more, give me a shout and we'll see what we can do: j (at) budgets are sexy (dot) com. This has actually been a lot of fun so far! I have 5 clients now and we're rocking it :)]

So I got a SUPER interesting email shot my way by a fellow blog reader this weekend, and now my creative juices are flowing on maximum overdrive :) Especially since y’all know I’m currently looking for the next “big thing” to pour my time into over here and get out of this rut.

Here’s what the email said:

Hi J Money

I didn’t know if you had any resources or information on anyone that would budget and pay my bills for me? I make a budget and we just cant stick to it. We try over and over again. Maybe I’m just not realistic with the budget but we do also overspend. I think I would love it though if someone would just pay our bills and then hand us the leftover cash for the week.

Are there people out there that do that??

That’s brilliant! A “pay your bills for you” service! YES! I like it! As lame as this is about to sound, I LOVE PAYING ME SOME BILLS!!! Haha… It really is fun and rewarding to me – no joke. And I reckon it would be even more so using someone *else’s* money to do it! Haha… :) Not to mention learning all about their finances inside and out like a complete voyeur – similar to what we do here every month. It’s what us financial nerds live for, right?

And the email couldn’t come at a better time too, considering I was literally just thinking about offering a similar “management and bill paying” service to my mother-in-law, now pushing into her late 70′s. Free of charge, of course, but still – wouldn’t be so for others ;) Managing money is a huge burden for some people, whether they have a lot or not. And if you suck at it, similar to say, weight lifting or eating well, why not hire someone to help out with it and hopefully learn along the way?

But to answer my friend’s question up there on whether or not there are people who do this type of stuff, I hadn’t a clue. Only that the wealthy have people like this and probably pay a hefty premium for it too (I believe to their accountants and/or wealth managers/bankers).

So like any good researcher, I took it to Google and typed in: “pay my bills for me” to see what I got in return. And WOW you’d be amazed at all the people who offer such services! And who also want you to quite literally PAY their bills for them too – with your own money ;) Haha…

What a “Daily Money Manager” is

In a nutshell, the term for people like these are “daily money managers.” And according to investopedia they are:

A person who takes over the day-to-day financial tasks for those who are unable to perform these tasks on their own. A variety of people employ daily money managers, (DMM’s) ranging from elderly clients to those simply too busy to maintain total control and accuracy of their financial needs. Some tasks performed by DMM’s include bill payments, preparing tax documents, wire transfers, monthly paperwork and balancing, security checks, and basic deposits/withdrawals.

Who knew :) And fortunately for me (if I just wanted to “jump in” and start helping people), yet unfortunately for the general public, the niche isn’t all that regulated. Really only by a code of ethics and a certification test by the AADMM it seems (American Association of Daily Money Managers). Outside of that I couldn’t really find anything too substantial. Which means people like my friend above looking for such services REALLY needs to do their homework first and make sure they can trust someone who won’t scam them! Which is so rampant among the elderly these days :(
It also brings up a slew of other questions too. Like:

How much does such a service cost?

How much personal info do you need to give away?

What happens if they screw something up?

What if you always spend more than you receive?

Do you really NEED a service like this?

It’s that last one that probably affects most of us reading this here right now. You’re on the blog to learn and stay motivated to keep up with this money stuff, not turn it over for someone else to do for you (for pay too, mind you). And I’m guessing none of you are super old and/or millionaires either, right? If you are, give me a shout and we can work something out ;)

In all honesty, I’m thinking our emailer here would probably be better off talking with a financial planner or someone who can *consult* on a one-on-one basis with how to best get (and stay) on track again. Or even continue reading blogs for that matter, AS LONG as you actually take action afterwards. That way you can continue to learn and improve on going forward, rather than turn it all over to someone else.

Though I’d imagine after a few months of everything working out smoothly w/ the system the daily money manager implemented, you’d learn a great deal of how to do stuff from that, eh? So that could always be another route for someone to take: Try it out for a handful of months and ask questions along the way so you can go back out on your own again with some deeper knowledge. That wouldn’t be so bad, right?

Anywho – something new to mull over for a change…

Maybe y’all have already heard of this? Or even USED a daily money manager before?If so, we’d love to hear your experience! And any insight you may have on it, either bad or good!

We’ll see if I ever really do get into it myself down the road, but for now I’m gonna continue researching and poking around a little to see if it’s something that really would be fun and interesting to try out in the near future. I reckon if you came up with a tidy game plan for everyone, along with some simple recording and statements each month, you could manage a handful of clients all paying a decent monthly mgmt fee, eh? Maybe $100 or $200/mo all recurring? It would definitely need to be automated a good portion for it to be worth it, that’s for sure.

I’ll let you know if I jump in. I can see it now: “Rock Star Money Management Inc!” :) Which I could then pitch to people like Bret Michaels and Flava Flav too – all of whom are too busy chasing girls and reality shows, haha… I’m gonna go call their agents now.

I imagine a lot of people on the wealthy side have personal assistants who are tasked with daily money management. It kinda just sounds like glorified bookkeeping. With that said, I also would LOVE to manage a bunch of people’s bills and spending money the way the emailer described! I would be in my glory if some one came to me and said “Here are the passwords to my bank accounts, all of my bills/debt, and my checkbook. I would like to pay off my [credit card debt] as soon as reasonably possible. Please create a budget for me to approve and take over my finances.” HOWEVER, the emailer basically says they keep falling off the wagon which means there is a wagon for them. To me that means there are some psychological/emotional spending issues that they can’t control, so handing over their finances to some one else will give them panic attacks and probably cause fights between them and the money manager. I imagine part of daily money manager contracts allows the client to request their funds whenever they want which would not help the emailer’s spending problem.

Seems to me that with automatic bill pay, this service is not needed for most people. I suppose if you do have a lot of money and a lot going on OR if you are older or not as organized/competent, then you could benefit from something like this. I would imagine that 95% of us are not in the category and simply need to learn how to better manage our money. Paying someone else to do it is not going to help us learn to be better stewards of what we have….it only creates one more hole (bill) to throw money into….probably making our situation worse without learning anything.

True. Unless the person DOES know how to do it all and merely prioritizing their time for bigger better things. Those would be the fun ones to manage I bet cuz you’d get the inside scoop on their worlds/businesses they’re growing and would probably motivate you even more to get your hustle on!

This is like seventeen sorts of awesome! My background is a “professional” setting where most of the people work sixty to ninety hours per week and would love to “just know” that everything is on track. So if they could write one check (or set up one auto transfer) to a dedicated clearance account for you to make sure their bills and other transfers (i.e. to auto-investing in mutual funds or whatever) get paid they would likely pay a pretty penny.

You’d be surprised how many folks who make a lot of money don’t know (or want to know) about the rest of the stuff, so if they could set one transfer up to an account and then know they can spend the rest without worrying about retirement going off track or their many, MANY bills being paid, it would totally be worth it… I may join you in the venture…

You could set up an system to e-mail or text them every time a bill got paid, too, so they know “Congratulations. Your mortgage got paid. The following bills will be paid for the remainder of the month.”

But auto transfer to the clearance account would need to be mandatory for you. You can’t pay bills that you don’t have the money to pay.

OK. This is a comment and not a book. So I’ll stop writing. But I love the idea and think there’s a market who would pay at least $100 per month to do it, maybe up to $250. You could do a percentage of the payments, but then the people would see it as paying a premium over their bills. So maybe a range where you charge $10 for up to 3 payments, etc.

I tried something similar with a reader of mine (for free as a trial). My idea was to go over her income and budget, make goals for the week and check in at the end of the week. It worked for a week and then I never heard back from her. I don’t think she wanted to report back that she didn’t reach her goal. I think your service could be very effective, especially if you are meeting with those local to you. We have friends that can easily drop $100 or more going out one night. For those that have this kind of extra money, $100 to get your finances in order definitely seems worth it!!

I feel like if I didn’t take control of my finances first, I wouldn’t be accomplishing the goal of being financially responsible.

For the reader who shared, I think that this is just delaying the inevitable of not being able to manage their money in the end. The sooner we establish those skills and responsibilities, the better we will be in the end.

If it works, it works and use it, but I’d make sure I first developed the proper habits and handed the process to someone else once I knew I could handle it if they weren’t around.

Whoa! Crazy coincidental! I was asked about this sort of thing by two different people this past weekend! I just didn’t know what it was called…

It is a great idea for a side hustle or maybe a full-blown work project. I wonder if there were some sort of education aspect to it that would help them learn personal finance while you controlled it and then gradually handed it back to them would help.

I was in a similar situation to Mrs. Debtfighter. I spent an entire weekend helping a friend organize her finances and set up a budget with a plan of action for the following month. To which they promptly did nothing and it was a waste of time. But if you simply did it for them… that might work.

Reminds me of when people in the grocery check-out line would ask to hire me to grocery shop for them with coupons…

I love this idea. I work in a foreign country, but still have a house state side. I travel alot (also foreign). My internet connection is generally spotty at best. As a result, sometimes it is hard to check in on my bills and keep up with everything.

I would not need it if I just had a handful of bills that were easy to automate. However, I have 2 households in seperate countries, multiple credit cards (I pay them off, but I have one for business, an AmEx (rebate tied to Fidelity account) and a personal card for places that dont accept AmEx.

I was actually a DMM for my grandmother in her last two years of life. I didn’t know there was a name for it though. I thought it was just being a caring and responsible granddaughter. It was rewarding at times to make sure she had enough money for medical expenses and some spending money but other times, I wished I wasn’t aware of her financial business. She made a lot of money in her life but wasn’t financially savvy enough to where she could live comfortably in her senior years. My family is still dealing with the financial choices of both of my grandparents. It makes me want to help other elderly people that need help budgeting their money.
P.S. J$, you need to update your pop culture references- rock of love and flavor of love are ancient history.

Yeah, that’s the weird part about managing $ in your family – you learn stuff you probably don’t want to be learning :( At least with strangers and other people you don’t have the emotional attachment – which I bet helps managing their money even better too.

As soon as I read the title, the word book keeper flashed in my screen. Well maybe I just imagined it, but that is what I was thinking while reading the post. I looked up book keeping a few months ago to get into as a side hustle, and you need like 1400 hours of on the job training, then you have to get certified by taking a 4 hour test. I thought to myself the time and the money spent on something this intense might not yield enough customers. Because with all the quick books softwares available, people just don’t need bookkeepers.

Bookkeeping is still an in-demand job even with QuickBooks, it’s just not as time intensive anymore because of the technology. There are many people who just don’t want to learn anything about keeping financial records. QB and other software make it easier, but it’s still scary and overwhelming for many people. You can also get into bookkeeping without a certification, although I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t at least taken Accounting 101 without having a panic attack.

Yeah – this is def. similar (the same?) as bookkeeping. With a more laid back name and a twist at least :) I’m pretty sure I could get some clients in this area without 1400 hrs or any tests taken – even though it would be smarter of me to do that first.

Sounds like a manger or accountant of some sort. Either way I volunteer *both hands raised in the air. I LOVE managing money even though right now I have to pay all these extra fees to get my house set up and in cash to get discounts.

I think it definitely is an idea that could work and am sure people out there would pay to have this done for them. Personally speaking, I am too cheap…not to mention I get some weird satisfaction out of paying my bills.

This seems a little bit excessive, hasn’t online banking automated so much of bill paying already? I could see this being a growing market for the elderly though, if they don’t have kids or their kids aren’t taking care of it .

It’s a different story if the DMM will escort me to the grocery store and prevent me from buying ice cream every week.

I would love that job and I am very good at it! However there is caveat to that – if people simply hire that ‘personal assistant’ to take care of their bills because they are super busy, I totally understand. But if that is because those people cannot live with a budget and tend to overspend and leave nothing else for the month, having someone help pay their bills are not going to solve anything. Yes their bills will be paid and they ‘claim’ they will only live off the ‘leftover’ you hand them, but they still won’t stick to the budget – in fact they will probably more eager to spend since they think “my bills are already taken care of!” and most likely go rack up credit card debts.

I am actually thinking about starting a business doing this. I am a DMM for my sister who has medical issues right now but even before that she struggled with finances because she didn’t manage her bills very well. She couldn’t afford me at first ($50 per month) because of her poor management skills. I did several things to fix that issue. Month one I saved her $150 just by calling and making a change to one of her school loans. I also made a change to her cell phone plan which saved her another $20 per month. So in the first month alone I provided for 3 and a half months of my services. Month two I set up a yard sale for her, I don’t know how much she made but it got rid of her storage container of $55 per month. Another words month two payed for my services for life. I have continued to save her money every chance I can find. To me this is the biggest part missing from all the ideas above. Now I just need to figure out how to run a business not just manage accounts.

J. Money thanks for your blog the information you provided about AADMM will guide me on my next step of creating a business.

Yeah man, no problem! I hope you DO look into it more and get a nice biz going with this stuff :) I’ve spend the last 3 weeks interviewing DMMs, as well as financial planners and also coaches, and everyone seems to enjoy the work. And form strong relationships in general with people too – which I never really thought about before. Win-win in my book.

I wouldn’t do it. I am too obsessed about budgeting and paying anything in time and being in control, so I couldn’t let somebody else handle my budget and bill payments. But I do understand that some people could need that – especially in getting a realistic budget to cater to their specific needs, but since this is not a job that’s clearly regulated, I would be too afraid of scammers…

And yeah, I am still a bit surprised about this money managers thing. Never heard of it, never thought it could be possible :)

While managing these things seems simple to me, I think we all end up outsourcing some things so it makes sense that, for some, this is a service that’s worth the cost. I suck at growing vegetables and at making clothes so I’m okay outsourcing that.

The rub is really the cost…at $100 or $200 a month, I don’t know if most of the people who need the service really would benefit from it. But if it’s only $25 or $50 a month, is it worth your time to provide the service?

Louis Armstrong was a very successful musician that made lots of money during a time when black artists struggled to get by. But he didn’t really leave this world with lots of money and no, he didn’t misspend it.

Louis Armstrong had an agreement with his manager where Louis would always have enough money to pay his bills and own his home in Queens and be able to travel the world playing music. And his manager could have anything leftover.

So for someone like Louis, that situation worked out the best. Because before he had his manager handle his finances, his finances were in a downward spiral.

Full disclosure here, I work for Wells Fargo, but I work for their Insurance department which is in no way related to the product I’m going to mention below and I have zero knowledge about this product except what is available to the general public.

Before I started using this, my fiance and I had an Excel sheet with our income, monthly expenses, and debt and used Google Calendar as a reminder for when automatic bill pays were scheduled and when we’d need to log in somewhere to pay something. But because we had budgeted everything so precisely, we had a really hard time deciding when it was okay for us to go crazy and buy a spur of the moment board game or go out to dinner. Sure, it looked like we had it in the budget, but we could only sit at the computer for so long trying to figure out how/if it would affect us later in the month.

Then this tool (still in its pilot phase) came along and made our lives so much easier. It links to your WF online account and you just need to input your incoming and outgoing money streams (transfers between WF accounts are automatically imported) and it tells you how much money you should have in your account each day over the next month or so. There are some definite shortfalls – I can only see up to about one month in advance, I can’t have a bill occur every third Friday – but for the most part it’s exactly what we needed. After combining this with our existing budgeting system a few months ago, we’ve been saving more money and paying off debt faster (“hey, looks like we’ll have an extra hundred bucks at the end of the month; we’ll throw that onto a credit card!”).

We’ve come to use it so much, I’m actually a little worried what I’ll do if it doesn’t survive the test phase. :/

Oh, I’m sure it will! All smart banks are coming up with tools to offer their customers and keep them attached to their services – and for once it’s GOOD for people! :) USAA (my fave bank) has a similar group of tools going on and it’s def. there for the long haul. Super smart of banks.

I’m a Daily Money Manager and a member of AADMM. I’ve had my own business doing this work for 5 years now and I LOVE it. Yes, I get paid for what I do, but I also know that I am making a real difference in people’s lives, and that makes it all worth it. My youngest clients are in their 20s and 30s, and I help them get started in their financial lives with financial organization, billpay, establishing budgets and so forth. My oldest clients are in their 90s, and I help them with billpay, account reconciliation, and such. They and their families are so grateful for bringing peace of mind to their loved ones. And I have cleints at all ages in between. Just like anything in life, there are people who are good at managing their money and don’t need a Daily Money Manager, but there are also a lot of people that really struggle with managing their daily finances for whatever reason, and we’re here to help!

I’m actually in the process of starting my own DDM business! I think it’s an awesome field that helps many people. I think the hardest part will be convincing people to actually pay for this service. Are you able to make a full time income with your business?

I’ll agree with you on that one. But I’d imagine if you can convince them that buy PAYING you they’ll actually be SAVING more in the long run that it’ll surely skew them more towards your side than not? But of course there’s trust and proof and blah blah blah involved too…. Not sure if your question regarding making a full time income from business is directed at Alison’s comment up there, or mine, but I do make a full time income from all my online stuff and it’s awesome. This month not so much as others, but it’s def. fun. Seems Alison does too from the looks of her note!

Haha. This seems kind of.. against the point, right? I mean, how do you know how much you can spend, and how much you need to make to reach your goals if you don’t budget yourself and pay your own bills? But hey, I can see that as a money maker!

I feel like you’d know after a cple of months of getting an “allowance.” If after 3 mos you always have $300 left over you’d know what you’re dealing with. At least in theory. (And depending on your life and emergencies and such that hopefully the money manager would be helping figure out too with accounts needed, etc)

I also love paying bills – no joke. It’s almost as cool as Space Invaders. I would also love a job where I take somebody off the shitheap. This is a job I would do for free if I could afford it.

Perhaps the angle is not to become a certified whatever, but to BE the certifer. Maybe we develop a cirriculum, test, screening, etc…. maybe there are different levels, thereby accessing deeper access to personal accounts?

Oh yeah, now you’re thinking! Tons of opp. there if you can pull together enough time and resources to make it happen. Maybe I’ll let you do all that and then you can test it all on me and send me a referral fee every month? Deal? ;)

We’ve looked in to daily money managers for providing for our siblings in the future. Neither sibling can handle money well (for a variety of reasons), and we’ve got our own family to worry about, so I don’t want to have to be handling out allowances for brothers. The prices seem reasonable for what they do, and all of the ones we talked to had excellent references that really liked what they did.

But, I think most people hire daily money managers to help care for a family member that can’t do for themselves rather than for themselves.

There probably is a big market for this kind of stuff! I’ve never thought of it before though! In a way if people aren’t financially responsible you’re throwing in a third person who will probably get the brunt of all their money worries. Instead of the people handling it themselves and hopefully learning from it. I’m sure it works for some people though!

Meet your second DMM! I have clients of all ages, but especially love my seniors. In some families it is better to have a 3rd party handling the finances so everyone is comfortable that a family member or caregiver is not syphoning off funds. And with all of the scams directed toward seniors, I can provide peace of mind by sorting through the mail and monitoring account activity. My younger clients prefer to spend their time on what they are good at and are happy to outsource what they consider tedious tasks.

I have a friend who uses what she refers to as her financial planner. That person pays their bills, allocates to savings and gives them a monthly allowance. I’d have a VERY hard time with the idea of allowing someone else to have 100% responsibility over my savings and bills. Takes alot of trust in that person as well.

The DMM does not have to have 100% control. In fact, I’ve never had a client where I’ve had total control. In most cases I provide a list of payments I will be making BEFORE I do so, or the client sends me the list of payments they want me to make. I never spend or move money without talking with the client first. In fact, in most cases I am right there at their home with them when payments are made. I am sure there are DMM’s who do have 100% responsibility and there are some cases where that might be appropriate. DMM’s generally have a contract with their client that spells out exactly how the money will be handled. Also, most DMM’s are insured. Potential clients should always ask about that.

I am a Professional Daily Money Manager and have been for 8 years and can answer your questions:
How much does such a service cost? Most Daily Money Managers are paid by the hour. Some who know about Medicare and Social Security may have higher hourly rates because understanding Medicare and Social Security can be complicated.

How much personal info do you need to give away? Depends on how much you would like to have done with your finances. Some people like to have checks written and we record them with software, Some clients prefer online banking. It is between you and your Daily Money Manager to work out your comfort level.

What happens if they screw something up? Daily Money Managers are insured.

What if you always spend more than you receive? We would be the ones to tell you where you spent it! and some times awareness is all you need.

I am absolutely floored that you would bring up this topic now as only two days ago I wrote my pitch to do almost exactly that for others!!! In AUS we have a company that does something similar (called My Budget) I have heard both good and bad reviews about this company but have not used them myself. ( that would be a little bit stupid if I want to help others wouldn’t it?) They will budget your money, charge an ongoing fee and if needed will also assist with debt consolidation eg giving you a loan of the total of $$ you owe everywhere so you can pay out everything and put into one payment back to them instead of all over the place. The good thing about this is that the loan is low interest and it stops you from worrying about the bank or credit card company contacting you as “my budget” handles everything once your application is approved. I believe you have to be a minimum of $8000 in debt to apply. For me I really want to do more of a tailored solution to prevent the consolidation part. As you know from my blog we were in a precarious position a while back and I did cutting/saving/hustling to stop us going under. Now we are coming along very nicely and beign able to do things we never thought possible. My idea is that I want to show others how to do the same (Only from experience not a financial advisor, so there will be no investment etc advice) as I have already done it for family and friends I though why not make it my hustle if I am good at it? Thoughts?

I wouldnt be charging massive ongoign fees either because I want to encourage people to contact me BEFORE they go under and people who know they are broke never think they can afford the financial advisor. I know that at one point I couldn’t so I want others to have an outlet where they can learn enough to manage it themselves and then referrals are word of mouth :)

And lastly have you seen app MindMyMoney? excellent just love it! You can count in all your automatic payments and it will tell you whats left. Each time you spend, you log and catergorize (sounds complicated but very user friendly) and you know where your money is going and what you have left. You can also set budgets for each catergory and if you upgrade (well worth is for the extra $3ish ) you can set your own catergories. its definitely a go to app for me.

Pretty good timing indeed :) Haven’t heard of either of those sites you listed but I say throw your services out there and see what happens! Doesn’t hurt to start talks with people while you figure out what you want to offer and how much. Maybe do some research as for the legality of stuff there in Australia in the meantime. Your blog’s a great start for promotion and leads too :)

I actually took over my mother’s finances about 5 years ago. She has historically been terrible with money. Her paychecks are now direct deposited into a joint account with me and her. I receive all the bills via email. I pay all the bills, give her a weekly allowance. As a result, we have actually saved around $20k in the 5 years that I have been managing her finances. It’s tough because we fight about money all the time, usually when she wants to go on a spending spree. But all-in-all she’s happy because she never had a savings before.

Greetings, Friends!
As a semi-retirement job, I recently began a Daily Money Management business in the Arlington/Fort Worth, Texas area (Tarrant County) and I am just having a blast! It is amazing the people who need thee service. I originally thought most clients would be seniors, but I keep stumbling upon either widowed or divorced women who have no idea how to manage their daily financial affairs without a husband. The biggest challenge has been educating people in this market that we exist and we are honest, reliable, knowledgeable folks.

We are excited to see AADMM mentioned in this post! As a spokesperson for the association I wanted to share some helpful information: If you’re looking to hire a DMM you can search for one in your area at http://www.aadmm.com/findDMM.php. You can also review the Top 10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a DMM at http://www.aadmm.com/media/12/Top_Ten_List.pdf. Those looking to further their career in daily money management can email us at info@aadmm.com. AADMM provides education and resources for seasoned professionals as well as those new to the field.

@JMoney yeah thats originally why I started the blog. Gotta drive the traffic first! I have a question though about wordpress, how do i create lists for specific subbscribers? I dont necessarily want to update subscribers on every single post, rather have a once or twice a week newsletter with all the links to the posts written with a bit of a story attached. I also installed sticky email which has collected some addresses but I have no way to access them now i have lost my password. And not sure why i cannot link it to a subscribers newsletter link in wordpress. Am I making sense? Can you help?

Your best best is to probably just sign up to a newsletter service like Aweber (what I use) or MailChimp which will allow you to create and manage as many different newsletters and email lists as you’d like :) The pros there is that they’re super easy to use and not attached to your blog so you can take this list with you wherever you go in the future, but the downside is that it’ll cost you some money each month. Less than $20 in the beginning, and then more once your list grows a lot (a good problem to have). I think there’s something to be said with focusing on one or two newsletters max so you don’t burn out and/or it gets confusing, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out over time :)

Check out the American Association of Daily Money Managers at http://www.aadmm.com for more information about the profession. There is a section on the home page for those interested in DMM as a career. You can also email us directly at communications@aadmm.com.

I came across this post trying to research the field (ironically bc I just found out about your blog earlier today). This is exactly what I want to do for my side hustle. I’m currently doing it for my best friend and she’s thrilled to save some dough instead of spending it all. Her problem is that she never remembers how much needs to be reserved for all her automatic bills being paid, and frankly, doesn’t have the drive to pay attention to it like us money nerds. My parents want me to help them as well. I can really see a market for this since many people just don’t want to deal with it. I’m excited to look more into this certification and see what I need to do to become legit! Thanks for this post!

I have ADHD. I might seem fine and appear totally competent. My financial life hangs over me like a big stressful cloud. I have problems with priorities, being overwhelmed, forgetful, impulsive, and procrastination. Example: I just got a $1500 decrease in pay just because I forgot to finish a health assessment, My partners job is ending this week. Why would I do that??
I buy things that are not needed. Do not budget for things I should plan for. See a cool gadget online and buy it justifiying it in some ridiculous way, Wait until I have a quiet moment for finances that never comes resulting in charges and late fees.
It there was a chantix for money like there is for cigs, I think maybe I could do this myself. But there isnt a pill. I think this habit could be broken. Someone needs to take the reigns for awhile. Without money there would be no temptations. I could see I could live life without frivolous spending. A certain amount in my Debit card would make me actually stop and THINK.
We sold our property. Paid off a lot of irresponsible debt. But I can see leftover money whittling away while he finds a new job.
There is no DMM avail upstate New York…. Practically everything financial Is online and autopay for me. Email or better yet Skype, thats all I would need. I don’t need someone to come to my door.
Thank you so much for writing this. Also to all the people who commented.

Man, sorry to hear. At least you’re *cognizant* of the situation though and not hiding under a rock or something! I’m sure you could find a handful of people that would work with you via email or Skype – I’m not aware of why a state’s boarder would restrict that? I call up and Skype my blogging clients all over the world to offer guidance, and I’d think the same could go for helping someone with money, unless you’re looking for a professional with a certain degree. Like a financial adviser or CPA. And I think you’re right too that you just need to get going and get the structure in place, and then from there you’ could go back to tackling it yourself :)

Wally, your situation is common among people I know. This is exactly why a friend of mine asked me to take the reigns on hers and it has been drastically helping since. Primarily because of the accountability for her purchases.

I actually found this post looking for someone to do just that for me. I literally have a phobia when it comes to dealing with bills and people I owe money to. I get physically ill (headache nausea etc). This service would be great. I don’t think I would be relinquishing control because the “daily money manager would still keep me informed and call me if there’s a problem and I would be paying them for the great service of not having to deal with stuff that stresses me out to that level. I would still know basically what was going on I would just not have to deal with hours of checking my paper trail each month to make sure stuff is getting paid. I already have most of it on auto pay. They could have all the bills addressed to them or sent to them by me. They could give me a call and touch base and get a quick yay or nay from me about changes. I am now in a situation where I am facing wage garnishment and am in a mess at the moment, not because I didn’t have money for a bill, but because I didn’t know it existed. I thought it was being taken care of with autopay and I wasn’t opening letters from them thinking it was the monthly ” your monthly bill was $X and it’s being paid through autopay” a “daily money manager” could have found that for me and straightened it out before it became a huge mess. Supposing I can get this straightened out, a money manager is EXACTLY what I need. Any retired CPA’s or bookkeepers out there want to start a business exactly like this?

Yikes – I hope it all gets squared away soon! Look through all the comments here – there were a few people if I recall that already offer this service,and some who left some good resource links too :) If I had created this up when I had the idea, I’d help you! But luckily there’s tons of others who do. Good luck! I’m glad you’re taking action and looking for answers/help!

Hi, I only skimmed thru this blog but what I did see from what I read is you’re worried that peeps won’t pay more than $25-50/mo for someone else to pay their bills for them and give them what’s left from paycheck! Seriously, I pay about $300-400 a month in bank fees from overdrafts so $100 or even $200 WOULD SAVE ME MONEY!! My bf and my problem is trying to keep track of everything coming out of account!! Auto insurance requires direct debit but takes it out on the 16th!! We get paid on Fridays. Schedule bill pay for mortgage but can take a week or so to clear!! Verizon wireless scheduled on a certain Friday but might not debit til next Monday. He goes to ATM and I go at same time and forget to put in register!! We try to sync our checkbook register app but always wrong!! Bank puts highest stuff first so go negative and pay more fees and more fees!! If I didn’t ever have to touch my account except to cash a check then SCORE furreal!! We make enuf, jus can’t keep from getting fees!! Lots and lots of fees!!! $850 one month last year just in fees!! Were making the banks rich where I need a bailout!!

Holy crap!! Yeah, you guys DEF need someone to swoop in and get it all set for you and then dip out and let you guys rock it from there. At least you have the money there and it’s only a management type of problem! Much easier to fix than the opposite… Try calling up all the places you pay bills at and moving the due date – usually you can. Then watch this video by Ramit – I’ve only seen parts but it was pretty dead-on. Do the work to automate/get it on track once and you’re golden going forward! You can do it!! :)

J.Money,
I will gladly be your test case and will be happy to pay for the honor. My wife and I make more money than most of our friends but live check to check. We are not credit card deviants and our only bad habit is eating expensive food. If you would like to take us on as a fun project to blog about or simply for side money please get a hold of me and we can discuss the logistics.

I’d love to help! I absolutely love budgeting. I know I’m a bit of a nerd but I budget and read accounting books for fun. I typically get my fix answering people’s questions in budgeting forums and would love to have a job where all I did was budget for people. If your interested lemmie know.

If you’d like to chat more about it, shoot me a note (j @ budgets are sexy (dot) com) and let me know, and we’ll do a free 20 min call to get to know each other and see if we’d be a good fit. Then if we are, we can schedule a session which would be $50.

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